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William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

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What Lies Beneath

If you were to ask someone who they relied on when they were a kid, they would most likely name some sort of adult figure. We were raised to rely on someone older than us that would be there and take care of us. It’s human nature to have someone raise us until we are capable of doing it ourselves. Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding set after World War II. It goes against the norms of having adults there to help raise a few school boys. A group of young English boys crashed onto an island, left alone with no adults. They are then forced to figure out ways to properly survive on this island by themselves. Two characters that had every intention on keeping civilization alive on the island is Ralph and …show more content…

He is one of the only boys that strategize their rescue, how they eat, where they go to the bathroom, etc. This gave him the upper hand for quite some time, which he uses to try and keep everyone in order. One of the ways he does that was reminding them that they need to keep the signal fire going. He plans on using this fire as a way to get the boys rescued if someone in a passing ship were to see it. He drilled it into all of their heads that without the fire, they will never be rescued. That leads him to say “Just a smoke signal so we can be rescued” (p. 170). Ralph’s character also represents order, which is much needed on the island. One of the ways he keeps the others in order is making rules. He calls meeting many times, “because we can’t have proper assemblies if you don’t stick to the rules” (p. 90). When he holds the meetings, he tells all the boys that without the rules everything will fall apart. As the story goes on, Jack starts to ignore the rules which does lead him into savagery. Ralph tries his best to keep his rules in order saying “we ought to have more rules” (p. 42). Although at the end of the novel Ralph is being hunted by the rest of the boys, he still represents civilization and order through all the things he does to try and keep the boys sane and

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